Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computing devices have continued to become smaller, more powerful, less expensive, more connected, and more ubiquitous. Today, many people have a smart phone, a home computer, and an office computer. Many also have additional tablet computers and laptops. There are increasing numbers of wireless accessory devices such as wearable computers, activity monitors and medical devices. Our vehicles and our public gathering places such as coffee shops, restaurants, airports, shops and shopping malls are equipped with increasingly powerful computing devices. As a result, many of today's environments may include multiple computing devices which are capable of performing a wide variety of computing tasks and are also capable of wirelessly communicating.
Given the ubiquity of powerful computing devices, there are untapped opportunities in computing device cooperation. Today's computing devices operate mostly independently of surrounding computing devices. As a result, when viewed as a group, computing devices in most environments display significant inefficiencies and redundancies, with significant effects on group-wide energy consumption. Such energy consumption is particularly problematic when it critically impacts the ability of some devices to perform their desired functions, e.g., when devices shut down due to low battery conditions.